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Turner Prize winner slashes painting to highlight arts cuts
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent21 Sep 2010
Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger has taken a version of one of Turner's most famous paintings and torn the heart out of it in protest at the Government's proposed arts cuts.
Wallinger, 51, has captioned his take on The Fighting Temeraire from the National Gallery: “If 25 per cent were slashed from arts funding, the loss would be immeasurable.”
The new work, called Reckless, was being unveiled today on a website - www.savethearts.org.uk - that is home to a petition calling on the Government to save the arts.
Wallinger said: “The arts are incredibly important to this country. They are probably the biggest success story of the past 15 years or so. It just seems a completely false economy to cut that much so savagely. That was what inspired the work.”
He chose the Turner to make his protest because it topped a BBC poll to find the greatest work in a British museum or gallery with 25 per cent of the vote.
It shows the 98-gun ship Temeraire, which played a distinguished role in Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, being towed from Sheerness to Rotherhithe to be broken up after being decommissioned in 1838. Turner loved the work, never sold it and finally gave it to the National Gallery.
Wallinger added: “I describe the cuts as a reckless adventure. In fact temeraire means reckless in French and by removing the obsolete ship from the scene I am rendering the painting wreckless.”
Cuts on the scale expected would destroy galleries' capacity to interpret great art like the Turner and risked driving away sponsors, he added.
The protest piece is the latest in a series by Britain's top artists which are being released every week until the Government reveals its spending plans next month.
Chigwell-born Wallinger, who won the Turner Prize in 2007, has joined David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley in signing the “save the arts” petition.
It says that “it has taken 50 years to create a vibrant arts culture in Britain that is the envy of the world” and appeals to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt not to risk destroying that achievement.
Reader views (5)
You can cut off as much as you like from Mark Wallinger's works at no great loss the The Arts. I do wish they change the name of the Turner prize to something more appropriate.
- Grumpy B., London, 22/09/2010 10:00
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Why not contribute 25% of his Turner prize to the arts.
- alan, England., 21/09/2010 13:55
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25% less Tracey Emin, please...
- Jane, London, 21/09/2010 12:43
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Turner needed no government grants.
He was a great artist, not a glorified box ticking civil servant, like so many
subsidized "artists"
- The Convenient Truth, Reading, England, 21/09/2010 12:41
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Turner needed no government grants.
He was a great artist, not a glorified box ticking civil servant, like so many
subsidized "artists"
- The Convenient Truth, Reading, England, 21/09/2010 12:40
Report abuse
